Offical "Fox News does stupid thing" thread

[Dominus Atheos]

I agree with the sentiments that we need one big thread like the political cartoons thread for this subject. I'll start off:





Fox news can't do math.

[Mr Bean]

Fox news changes party affiliation depending on if the news is bad.

John McCain says nice things about Democrats during the Republican Primary in 2008

Neal C, runs this graphic and calls him a Democrat

Foley sex scandal with pages breaks, Fox runs with it and labels him a Democrat several times as they announce the story.


Indictment of Ted Stevens Breaks, and Fox changes his party


During the election, surprising good news the upstart challenger was beating the incumbent, he must be the Republican!



And last the first when Fox started having this issue
Arlan Spector in 2007 when he got heat for going after Bush adminstration officals during questioning before congress. To note he was trying to get questions answered and was having none of the normal "I can't recall remembering bullshit"


*Edit and remember old "Hiking the Appalachian trail?
You guessed it, they changed his party too when he came out to do the big emotional press conference.

There was evening betting going around among Huffpost and other liberal sites that Fox would continue the trend of announcing Republican scandals by "accidentally" labeling the scandal suffer as a Democrat

[Surlethe]

[LaCroix]

I don't get it, there wasn't any difference.

[The Spartan]

Rouge vs Rogue, LaCroix.

The first is, depending on context, French for red or makeup applied to the cheeks (what I would call blush). The second is what Palin actually used in her title.

[Liberty]

Fox news can't do math.

For this one, I imagine the poll was multiple choice; "check off what candidates you would back" and you could check as many or as few as you want.

The global warming one is surely some kind of idiocy though.

If so, that's a damn bad way to display the results of such a poll.

Also, for those of you not in the know, someone wrote a parody called "Going Rouge" that mimicks the cover of Palin's actual memoir and everything. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/2 ... 30682.html. That is the book Fox News accidentally had up.

[jcow79]

The Daily Show had a great bit that covered Fox's Rasmussen poll that amounted to 120% while criticizing scientists for fudging their numbers. It also calls bullshit on Gretchen Carlson for dumbing herself down to appeal to Fox viewers despite her credentials indicating otherwise. (Ie. She claims she doesn’t know what ignoramus or czar mean even though she graduated with honors from Stanford and studied abroad at Oxford)

…unless you’re just dumbing yourself down to connect with an audience you think sees intellect as an elitist flaw.

Daily Show:December 8, 2009: Gretchen Carlson Dumbs Down

Edit. No "h" in Jon

[Liberty]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200912080051

If you go to the link above, you can see the video of Fox and Friends presenting the 120% poll. It's pretty hilarious because they seem to realize half way through that there's a problem with the numbers.

Confronted with clear falsehood, Fox News scraps its "zero tolerance" policy

December 08, 2009 9:18 pm ET by Jeremy Schulman

On November 23, Fishbowl DC published an internal Fox News memo detailing the network's new "zero tolerance" policy for errors. Today -- barely two weeks later -- Fox News attempted to explain why it wasn't going to take any action to correct the following December 4 segment in which three Fox hosts and the Fox News graphics department used a string of falsehoods to turn "59 percent" into "close to 100 percent."

Here's what happened.

This morning, Media Matters' Simon Maloy caught Fox & Friends displaying a graphic that falsely suggested that 94 percent of respondents told Rasmussen Reports that it is somewhat or very likely that "scientists falsif[ied] research to support their own theories on global warming."

As Simon explained:

What happened? Well, here's the Rasmussen poll Fox & Friends cited. They asked respondents: "In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?" According to the poll, 35 percent thought it very likely, 24 percent somewhat likely, 21 percent not very likely, and 5 percent not likely at all (15 percent weren't sure).

Fox News' graphics department added together the "very likely" and "somewhat likely" numbers to reach 59 percent, and called that new group "somewhat likely." Then, for some reason, they threw in the 35 percent "very likely" as their own group, even though they already added that number to the "somewhat likely" percentage. Then they mashed together the "not very likely" and "not likely at all" groups, and threw the 15 percent who were unsure into the waste bin. Voila -- 120 percent.

As such, Fox News' presentation of the data made it seem as though 94 percent of Americans think it's at least "somewhat likely" that climate scientists falsify their research data.

So Media Matters sent an open letter to Fox News asking how the network would deal with the falsehood in light of its new policy of "zero tolerance for on-screen errors."

Well, Politico's Michael Calderone reports that Fox News has decided to respond to the falsehood by claiming it didn't happen:

But Lauren Petterson, executive producer of Fox & Friends, told POLITICO that she sees no error in the graphic. And for that reason, there will be no reprimand of staff under the "zero tolerance" policy.

"We were just talking about three interesting pieces of information from Rasmussen," Petterson said. "We didn't put on the screen that it added up to 100 percent."

[...]

While Petterson maintains that Fox & Friend's didn't err in displaying the information from Rasmussen, she acknowledges that the presentation wasn't perfect. "The mistake I do see is we could have been a little clearer here," she said.

Fox's position is absurd. As Calderone notes, "its understandable why a viewer would look at the numbers stacked up like this on-screen and assume that '94 percent of American's think it's at least "somewhat likely" that climate scientists falsify their research data.' "

One "viewer" who apparently "assumed" that was ... Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy. Here's how he described the Rasmussen poll while Fox was showing that graphic:

DOOCY: Let's go ahead and take a look: Did scientists falsify research to support their own theories on global warming? This is a brand new Rasmussen poll. About 60 percent of you say, "Somewhat likely." Thirty-five percent say, "Very likely." So you got 90 -- you got a lot of people right there thinking it is likely, although 26 percent say, "Not very likely."

So in purporting to explain the poll results, Doocy claimed that 60 percent of respondents answered, "Somewhat likely." This is false. Only 24 percent of respondents said that; the "about 60 percent" figure actually combines the "somewhat likely" and "very likely" respondents. Doocy then suggested that a separate group of respondents -- 35 percent -- said, "Very likely." Doocy then attempted to add those two figures together, saying, "So you got 90 -- you got a lot of people right there thinking it is likely."

But the falsehoods didn't stop there. As soon as Doocy finished misrepresenting the poll, co-hosts Gretchen Carlson and Eric Bolling explained that since the poll had been conducted before the apparent theft and disclosure of climate scientists' private emails, the percentage of people who think scientists are falsifying data might now be "substantially higher" -- perhaps "close to 100 percent":

CARLSON: In the spirit of fairness, I believe that question was asked before these emails were revealed, so that poll number may actually be different now.

BOLLING: Substantially higher?

CARLSON: It might be, yes.

BOLLING: Close to 100 percent now.

This is completely false. The right-wing media began lying about the Climatic Research Unit emails on November 20. The Rasmussen poll was conducted December 1-2. It included a question about the CRU emails. So, no, the current figure is probably not "substantially higher," and it is certainly not "close to 100 percent."

As Media Matters' Ari Rabin-Havt put it, "On Fox News, percentages don't add up to 100 and, apparently, 'zero tolerance' means unless we get caught."

[wolveraptor]

"We were just talking about three interesting pieces of information from Rasmussen," Petterson said. "We didn't put on the screen that it added up to 100 percent."

Man, that pisses me off. What a snake. Why the fuck would you present the information in a single fucking pie chart if it wasn't meant to add up to 100%? Isn't that some elementary school shit?

[Darth Yan]

just when i thought they couldn't sink lower.

[Dominus Atheos]

While talking about the earthquake and resulting tsunami:

[Kodiak]

While talking about the earthquake and resulting tsunami:

snip image

Maybe I'm just tired but I don't see what's the stupid thing.

[The Vortex Empire]

Sydney isn't there, it's on the Southeast coast.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

"We were just talking about three interesting pieces of information from Rasmussen," Petterson said. "We didn't put on the screen that it added up to 100 percent."

Man, that pisses me off. What a snake. Why the fuck would you present the information in a single fucking pie chart if it wasn't meant to add up to 100%? Isn't that some elementary school shit?

More importantly, if it's not meant to add to one hundred, why use the label or sign for 'percent'. Percent literally means 'of' or 'out of' one hundred.

[Dominus Atheos]

Sydney isn't there, it's on the Southeast coast.

Here's a correct map:

[adam_grif]

Ah, Fox news.

It makes parody obsolete.

I don't know how to embed, so:
http://www.youtube.com/v/DNO6G4ApJQY

and

http://www.youtube.com/v/PKzF173GqTU

[Dominus Atheos]

Glenn Beck is a real class act:



I know that he does stupid shit all the time, but this was over the top even for him.

[Straha]

Rouge vs Rogue, LaCroix.

The first is, depending on context, French for red or makeup applied to the cheeks (what I would call blush). The second is what Palin actually used in her title.

Correction: The second is Sarah Palin's book. The first is a highly critical book of Sarah Palin subtitled "The American Nightmare".

[Razorgeist]

Glenn Beck is a real class act:



I know that he does stupid shit all the time, but this was over the top even for him.

I heard this the other day in work it was unsettling then and its unsettling now. Okay seriously could someone tell this scumbucket that he isn't funny. I mean thats just creepy. At least he didnt use the kermit the frog voice he always uses.

[Feil]

I've always enjoyed the animated segment at the beginning of Glen Beck's show with all the out-of-context quotes from various Founding Fathers. One of them is T. Jefferson: "Question with boldness."

The rest of that quote (which, obviously, does not appear on the show) is - "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."

[Night_stalker]

Don't forget the "Sexbox" scandal. God, they were morons with that whole interview.